India
has test-fired the first air-to-air Astra missile from Sukhoi Su-30MKI fighter
aircraft.

India's
first air-to-air Astra missile is finally back on track now after an excruciatingly
long delay due to technical glitches. The beyond visual range (BVR) missile,
with an eventual strike range of over 100km, will be fired for the first
time from a Sukhoi
Su-30MKI fighter this year.

Indian Air Force Sukhoi Su-30 MKI fighter aircraft

The
need for a cheap, indigenous air-to-air missile cannot be over-emphasized.
Modern day air combat is increasingly becoming all about BVR combat, rather
than the dogfights of yore, with missiles with ranges over 40 km becoming
the norm.

But
BVR missiles are quite complex - with rocket/ramjet propulsion, micro-computers,
active radar guidance/inertial navigation systems, terminal radar frequency
seekers and the like - since they have to effectively destroy highly-agile
supersonic fighters packed with "counter-measures" at long ranges.
Only a handful of countries like the US, Russia, France and Israel have
managed to develop them.

DRDO
chief Avinash Chander candidly admits there are major technical problems
in development of the Astra BVR missile, which sometimes pose bigger challenges
than even nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles. "The missile was repeatedly
failing since the aerodynamically controlled interactions were very severe,"
he told TOI.

"Finally,
we changed the entire missile configuration. It has now undergone three
successful ground trials. It then underwent captive flight trials in a
Sukhoi-30MKI this April. We are over the hump now. We hope to actually
fire it from a Sukhoi
Su-30MKI by year-end," said Chander.

Astra will have a Mark-I version with a 44-km range, which will be followed
by the over 100km Mark-II version. "Astra will be a state-of-the-art
missile that will first be fitted on Sukhoi
Su-30MKIs and then Tejas Light Combat Aircraft, followed
by others. We are pretty confident it will happen soon," said Chander.